Free To Receive Ephesians 2:1-10 November 29, 2009 

I don’t know about you, but when I go on a long trip, sometimes I need to be encouraged to keep going. Do you 
know what I’m saying? This summer my family and I drove 2400 miles through the southern states to visit with 
my parents. My friend Clayton graciously lent me a GPS for the trip. And more than once as we pulled off for 
another potty break I would back out the map on the GPS to see how far we had come from our last stop. I 
needed to see where we had come from to be encouraged to buckle the seatbelt again for another stretch on the 
road. And I would bask in the moment of my encouragement by saying to my fellow travelers, “Do you know 
how far we’ve come?”, and being met with silent disdain from the rear seats I announced the mileage. And then 
I would hear, “Yes father, but are we there yet”? And I lovingly answer back, “Child, stop messing up my 
groove”. Have you ever needed encouragement to keep going? Sometimes I need to be reminded of where I’ve 
come from as I press forward to where I will be going. 

Over the next two weeks as we prepare ourselves for the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we make ready for 
our celebration of God the Son’s incarnation on earth, as we come to celebrate Christmas we are going to be 
looking at the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Admittedly, this is not a traditional advent or 
Christmastime text. But I believe we will find in it, reasons for our hope and peace in Christ which we celebrate 
at this time. 

I confess that this morning I’m going to ask you all to do something uncomfortable. I’m going to ask you to 
spend our time together in the word this morning looking at sin, and not just any sin but your own sin. I am 
asking you to think deeply and seriously about your sin because the single greatest truth we find in the Bible is 
that Jesus Christ came to save us from sin. The gospel is not at all about your coming to Jesus to live a nice, 
tidy, wealthy, or pain-free life. God is not concerned with your happiness, God is not concerned with making 
sure that our material wants and desires are met. God ultimately, and this is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all 
about, God ultimately is concerned with dealing with sin - justly, decisively, and eternally. 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, my church family, if we are presenting in the gospel anything more than God 
justly, decisively, and eternally dealing with sin through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; 
if we are offering a gospel that says, “Come to Jesus so you can have a happy life”, “Come to Jesus so you can 
have a prosperous life”, “Come to Jesus so you can have some strange, emotionally driven encounter with the 
Holy Spirit”; if we are presenting anything other than come to Jesus - he saves you from the penalty of your sin. 
If we are presenting to people anything other than that simple message alone - we are offering people a false 
gospel. 

Throughout the Bible God is concerned with dealing with the damaging effects - actually the damning effects - 
of sin which humanity has all to easily embraced. 

Listen again to Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:1-3 because in them Paul cites the first of many reasons for 
Christians to celebrate the incarnation; the birth, of the Lord Jesus Christ into our world 

Paul says in Ephesians 2, verse 1, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used 
to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now 
at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our 
sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” 

I don’t know about you, but when I hear these words I am left speechless. 


I realize that these are not the words of a serene and picturesque Christmas story with a fat little baby Jesus 
quietly and peacefully lying in a feeding trough in a rugged old barn, with a bunch of animals and shepherds 
gazing in awestruck silence. Again, I am not saying this to apologize for the text, because I don’t and God’s 
word needs no apology. But before we get into some of the meat of these words I say this because I don’t want 
to loose you in what could be seen as negative, depressing, hopeless words; because they are not. If you’ll stick 
with me and think deeply about God’s Word for a few minutes this morning I believe you’ll see that Paul’s 
words to the Ephesians, though difficult to hear, are words of comfort, joy, hope, and peace. 

Paul’s goal in this passage is to encourage us in the journey as disciples of Jesus Christ. And next week, we will 
spend a good amount of time looking at the more encouraging, frankly the awe-inspiring things Paul has to say 
about where we are going as a result of being disciples of Jesus Christ. But first, he wants to build some 
appreciation and endurance for the journey ahead, by focusing us for a moment on where we’ve come from. 

Like mile markers on the interstate, Paul points us to 4 markers that will focus us on where we’ve come from as 
look out to where we are going. 

The first marker Paul reminds us of is that we were spiritually dead .Verse 1 says, “As for you, you were dead 
in your transgression and sins”. Spiritual death describes the condition of every individual. If you’re a 
Christian, this is your past. If you’re not a Christian then this is your present; this is where you are right now -
you’re spiritually dead, and you need the life giving power that comes from Jesus Christ. 

Spiritual death is best understood by looking at physical death. Physical death is an inability to respond, no 
matter what the stimulus is. Not only does the dead person lack the ability to respond to a stimulus they can’t. 
Almost all of us have been to funerals, as have I, to know what physical death is. It does not matter what the 
stimulus is, no physically dead individual ever reacts to any stimulus. Spiritual death then means that outside of 
Jesus Christ we not only have an inability to respond to spiritual stimulus -we can’t respond to it. Without God’s 
intervention on our behalf we will remain spiritually dead. 

Paul reminds us that we were once dead in our transgressions and sins. 

The second marker Paul reminds us of is that it is we who chose to follow another rather than God - we chose to 
follow after the influence of the world and of Satan. Beginning again in verse 1, “ As for you, you were dead in 
your transgression and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the 
ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who disobey”. 

This is hard to explain but I suspect if you are sitting here as a Christian today, you know exactly what it means 
to have followed after the world and been under the influence of Satan. When we give testimonies to our 
salvation in Christ and describe the kind of person we were before we meet Christ - it is following after the 
world and being under the influence of Satan that we are usually describing. 

And the truth is, the ways of the world and allegiance to Satan are things that even as believers in Jesus Christ 
we are constantly finding we are at war with. Just because you come to Christ does not mean that the influence 
of the world and Satan are removed from you, that the influence to do and be things that would be in rebellion 
and disobedience to God are no longer a struggle. Let’s face it, when we take being a disciple of Jesus Christ 
seriously - this resistance can actually become harder. 


The point is, there was a time when we could not resist at all. When we had no power over the influence of the 
world and Satan in our lives. 

We were spiritually dead and unable to respond to God, we followed after the world and allied ourselves with 
the kingdom of Satan. This naturally lead to the second effect of our spiritual death - turning inward and 
becoming self-absorbed and self-gratifying. Listen to verse 3. “All of us also lived among them at one time, 
gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts”. 

This third marker Paul reminds us of gives the clearest definition of sin we find in the Bible. Paul says, in our 
state of being spiritually dead because of our sin, we had gratified the cravings of our sinful nature and followed 
its desires and thoughts. In other words, our sin was the active choosing of our own way and leaving God out of 
the picture. 

And isn’t that the very core of self-gratification and self-absorption. I want what I want and will do whatever I 
need to do to get it. This is the ugliness of sin in its purest form. It doesn’t matter who I have to hurt, what law I 
have to break, what relationships I need to destroy - I want it, I deserve to have it, its mine, and I am going to 
get it. And Paul painfully reminds us that this was the attitude and lifestyle of the people we were when we were 
spiritually dead persons. We sought only to gratify our own desires, we sought only to satisfy our sinful lusts 
and needs, we sought only to please our selves. 

Putting the final nail in the coffin, Paul reminds us of the utter hopelessness we were in. At the end of verse 3 he 
simply says, “we were by nature objects of wrath”. Spiritually dead, allied to the world and the kingdom of 
Satan, self-gratifying and self-absorbed - we were a wretched and disdainful lot. - Paul simply states we were by 
nature objects of wrath, we were born this way, we did not develop into sinners - we are at our very core, in our 
bones, from head to toe sinners deserving condemnation, deserving damnation for all eternity in hell because of 
our sin. In a word we were hope-less. 

We need to take a moment and feel the heaviness of what Paul is saying. We were without hope, we stood justly 
condemned to be eternally separated from God because of our constant, willful choice to disobey and sin 
against God. 

And then in verse 4 two of the sweetest, most beautiful, most perplexing and profound words in all of the bible 
are found -BUT GOD... 

I love these words because they are the words of intervention, the words of mediation, the words of interference 
and interruption. They are words that do not allow us to wallow in sinfulness. They are words that do not sit 
back and wait for our just deserts to be fulfilled. BUT GOD are words of life. BUT GOD are words of hope, 

BUT GOD knowing we could not do anything on our won. BUT GOD, knowing we would not ever choose God 
on our own. BUT GOD, while we were still sinners. BUT GOD, while we were still in rebellion and 
disobedience to him. BUD GOD, while we were yet sinners God intervened for us in the God-man Jesus Christ. 

Christmas is the dramatic BUT GOD into human history. This baby in a manger is the the first salvo of BUT 
GOD into human life. The cross is the closing movement of BUT GOD to mankind. The resurrection is the 
BUT GOD which guarantees victory over spiritual death, and communion is the BUT GOD which reminds us 
of how far down the road from death to life we have traveled.. 


As we come to the communion table today, I strongly encourage you to remember that without Christ, you and I 
were spiritually dead and objects deserving God’s wrath. BUT GOD has intervened on our behalf in Jesus 
Christ. Hope has come into the world. 

Let’s pray.